


Grief has its blue hands in her hair

by safestorms



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-06-18 11:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15484536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safestorms/pseuds/safestorms
Summary: There was a time when loss swallowed her; nearly consumed her whole until she was an empty shell running away from herself aboard the Cant.Snapshots of Naomi, her relationship with Holden and loss. Post-s3 Finale.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t really read the books so this is based on the TV show only (and the hints given on it of Naomi’s backstory) and my speculation based on that. This fic is inspired by Warsan Shire’s poetry. The quotes used here are from her poems ‘Grief has its blue hands in her hair’ - from which I’ve taken for this fic’s title, ‘Souvenir’ [both from _Her Blue Body_ and ‘Conversations from the Deportation Centre’ from _Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth_.There will probably be another part to this fic. 
> 
> TW for mentions of abuse (Naomi’s abusive ex and his taking away her child from her). 
> 
> This is the first fic I've posted in years so I would greatly appreciate any feedback or even kudos if you enjoy it, thank you! I'm also new to the show so I apologize for any mistakes and I'm still feeling out the characters and their voices.

  
Chapter 1

 _1._ _Grief sedated by orgasm,  
_   _orgasm heightened by grief._

_..._

_Her hips grind,_  
_pestle and mortar,_  
_cinnamon and cloves._  
_Whenever he pulls out:_  
_loss._

 They can’t stop touching each other once they’re back on the _Roci._ It’s almost embarrassing how much they’re acting like teenagers who can’t keep their hands off each other. Naomi is glad that the rest of the crew aren’t around to see it. They’d pointedly given them their space; retreating to their bunks to catch up on some much-needed sleep. In Holden’s cabin, Jim and her are quick to strip each other of their clothes. She’s insatiable; desire like a bonfire within her,  a bottomless pit of need. She can’t suppress the sob that escapes her when he’s finally inside her – it comes from somewhere deep within her, guttural and raw; her body crying out.

 It’s funny, she’d thought they’d be fucking, starving for each other when they finally got to Holden’s bed. Instead their lovemaking is languid – they take their time to slowly explore each other’s bodies. Naomi remembers lying in bed with Jim before she’d left; when she couldn’t stop touching him then too. But that time she’d been trying to memorize his face. This time it’s relief, palpabable; its affirmation that _you’re here, you’re real._ Its home.

  It’s also a homecoming. It’s not just Naomi coming home to the Roci, to her man but she feels like she’s also coming home to herself. She’s all too aware of how loss changes her body but she hasn’t known till now what it’s like to be so full. She wants to press all her love for him into his skin until he’s glowing with it; stardust in his veins; a beacon lighting the way so she can find him if he’s ever lost. Maybe this way she can prevent death from taking him. It’s not true though, its not. No amount of love can save some things. She’s learned that lesson all too well.

 He kisses her all over her face like he’s trying to give her himself, heart and soul. He’s looking at her like she’s a miracle, bright and wondrous.

 She lies there basking in the afterglow and Jim hums, kisses the side of her head.

 “I need a shower,” he murmurs.

 She watches as he gets up and collects his bath things and his towel. Remembers what it’s like coming here from the _Behemoth_ and finding it empty of Holden, like a raw open wound.

 “God,” she says, “I missed your arse.”

 “What?” He turns around, his eyes crinkling in the corners like they do when he smiles. God, she’d missed that too.

 “You know that’s why I keep you around. Best arse on the Cant. That’s what everyone said.”

 “Is that so?” he asks, crossing the room to take her face in his hands, a bemused smirk on his face.

 “There was a competition and all. We voted. There was also a betting pool.”

 “Oh?” he asks. “Join me?”

 In the hot steam of the shower, she traces his face slow. He can’t take his eyes off her, lets her.  “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “For how things went down.That I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me about the protomolecule. That I didn’t know what you were feeling, what you must have been going through. I was, I was so cold. I’ll try to be better for you, for us.” He’s looking at her, all soft and earnest, overflowing with guilt and that endless drive to do right- that’s her Holden, that’s the man she fell in love with. _I thought I’d lost you_. She loves him fiercely.

 

2\.   _I think I brought the war with me_  
_on my skin, a shroud_  
_circling my skull, matter under my nails._  
_It sits at my feet while I watch TV._  
_I hear its damp breath in the background_  
_of every phone call. I feel it sleeping_  
_between us in the bed. It lathers_  
_my back in the shower. It presses_  
_itself against me at the bathroom sink._

It’s been months after they’ve dropped off the children from Io but she sees it one morning as she’s getting breakfast. A discarded child’s shoe tucked away in a corner; a left behind belonging.

Out of nowhere, there are tears welling up in her eyes, a lump in her throat and her hand is shaking so badly that she puts her plate of food down quickly before she drops it. Somewhere out there, a child is missing their lost shoe.

 Naomi knows what loss feels like, is all too familiar with it. It must be part of her bones by now, weighing her down like gravity. The funny thing is that too much of Earth’s gravity could kill her – she’s a Belter after all, her body long since adapted to low-g; unfit for prolonged exposure to more. But this loss is something she can never adjust to.  

 She closes her eyes, breathes, instinctively reaches to place a hand on her belly (where she’d carried her baby boy). She’d used to talk to him when he was in her belly, sing him an old Belter lullaby to soothe him when he was kicking and even after he was born, she’d croon it to him to coax him to sleep. She wonders if he remembers it now, if he even remembers her face anymore).

 It’s moments like this when her whole being can’t not think about her baby boy; loss filling her like blood flowing from an unstaunched wound until she’s drowning under the weight of it and there’s rust in her mouth and no matter what, she can’t get the taste of it out. It’s a part of her now. There was a time when loss swallowed her; nearly consumed her whole until she was an empty shell running away from herself aboard the Cant.

 She puts her food away - she’s not hungry anymore but every Belter knows better than to waste food. Her feet walk her back to where she’d awoken half an hour ago; Holden’s bed. The _Roci_ is heading back to Tyco to refuel and stock up their reserves which they’re overdue for after their ordeal with the Ring. They’ve been recuperating; catching up on sleep, Holden most of all – after all, he’d spent ages communicating with someone who looks like a dead person whom no one else but him can see

 He’s still asleep when she nudges open his door. He looks so peaceful like this, she dare not, _cannot_ disturb him with _this._  She kicks off her shoes, crawls into bed besides him; wishes that she could turn back time, reverse this morning till she’s back back  back waking up to Jim’s arm around her; his familiar scent filling her nostrils and so so warm. For months, she’d been taking his shirt and wearing it to bed; wanting to wrap herself inside the smell of him; shroud herself in it like somehow it could armor her against all the pain the universe has to offer. She’d missed it all those weeks on the _Behemoth_.

 Jim makes her feel protected. She tries not to think about another bed where each night had been like a battlefield for her soul, though it’d took her months to realize it. This is what Jim and her do for each other now – this soul-saving thing they have between them; though it’s still delicate, still a work-in-progress. It was Eros that awakened her but it was Jim who helped her keep her candle burning, her flame alight – Jim who grounds her because he too shares her same drive to do good.

 Jim cracks his eyes open as she snuggles up to him. “Back, already?” he asks, his voice thick and heavy with sleep. “I missed you. S’ cold without you.”

 “Sssh, go back to sleep,” she whispers. She wants so badly to shut the outside world out. But even here, in their own private world, there are still things she can’t tell Jim.

 But her words don’t have the effect she’d hoped for. He looks more awake now. “What’s wrong?” he frowns.  

 “It’s nothing,” she says. “You were up all night working. You should get some rest.”

 He huffs. “Naomi – “

 “I’m fine, Jim.”

 “Okay,” he gives in but he reaches out a hand to rub the crease in her forehead she hadn’t even known was there. Tender. His eyes are soft. She’s struck again by how open he’s being for her. How vulnerable. It’s something that she now comes to appreciate that _He_ never was.

 “Can we, can we just lay like this?” she asks

 Unlike her Jim is a rambler; he talks out his feelings and his worries in bed before they go to sleep. It helps him to get his feelings out. She likes that Jim wears his heart on his sleeve - there are no invisible booby traps lying in wait, not every conversation is a maze, an obstacle course she must navigate. She’s glad that in many ways Jim’s like an open book.

 “Tell me  a story. Tell me a story of when you were a boy,” she says. She shuffles closer to him until she’s close enough to see the flecks of brown in his eyes. He looks down at her fond, a smile tilting up the corner of his mouth. She loves that she can draw those expressions out of him; that she’s the reason for it.

 “I used to go stargazing out in the fields at night, the sky so big I could get lost in it.”

 “Mmm,” she hums into the crook of his neck. She wants to bury all her secrets there; the wounded raw parts of her; wants to excise them all. She could fall asleep like this to the soothing rhythm of his voice, the hum of it, his thumb rubbing circles into her back, enveloped in him and his embrace.

 “I used to think I was a knight.”

 “Of course you did. You can’t help it, can you? Always saving the world, saving everyone.”

 It never fails to surprise her how when they’re like this, skin-to-skin, heartbeat-to-heartbeat, he’s so ready to strip himself down, lay down his defenses. It makes her want to hold him close, closer-than-close.

She reaches to trace his scruff with her fingertips, just like she’d done after Io, trying to memorize the shape of his face, the texture of his skin; imprint the memory of it on her body as a talisman, a memento for the journey ahead, for safekeeping. After all, memory is all you have left sometimes. The thing about her, the thing that scares her, is how much space the people she loves take up in her heart.

He kisses his way tenderly up her neck and for now, this, this, is enough to keep her ghosts at bay.

 

  1. _I want to make love but my hair smells like war and running and running_



On Tycho, the people at the fueling station who they pay to help with the _Roci’s_ refuelment have their kid with them, a wispy little thing, clearly their pride and joy.

 Jim is holding the boy and making faces at him. It’s been a while since she’s seen him so carefree (she wonders if he’s thinking about what his kid would look like if he has one). It makes her heart clench. She’d made sure to spend limited time with the children from Io when they’d been transporting them back to Ceres. And Amos had been so good with them, she hadn’t felt like she was needed.

 She feels guilty that part of her feels _relieved_ that Jim can’t have children, that he can’t make her pregnant. She couldn’t bear it.And she loves sex with Jim. But he happens to glance up then and their eyes meet across the room. Something in her face must give her away because the expression in his eyes changes and he puts the kid down, making his way over to her.

 “Naomi-“ he starts. At this rate, he’s going to get permanent worry lines on his face.

 She breaks in before he continues, voice bright and peppy, “Drinks are on special tonight. I’m really feeling like one. Think about it, me, you, some beer, dancing?”

 Jim takes her face in his hands, cradles it gently, “Naomi…I’m sorry.”

 “What for?” she asks.

 Part of her is relieved that he drops it, another part of her is crying out for him to hold her and make this aching in her bones better. Once upon a time, she’d cried out to her lover, held nothing back. That Naomi is gone now.

 Her body revolts the next day. She comes down with some stomach bug. She’s sick in the toilet; just like when she was pregnant with Filip. This time there’s Jim, rubbing her back and holding a damp cloth to her forehead. “You’re okay,” he murmurs, “you’re okay. I’ve got you.” She lets him take care of her.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to expand this work to 3 chapters instead of 2. I've written most of this fic already but I thought I'd just post a brief chapter for now as it's been a while since I posted the first one. The final part should be longer!

Naomi surfaces from a nightmare about Filip; mouth open on a silent scream, his name strangled in her throat. There’s a rustling besides her, someone’s face buried in the crook of her neck. She flinches instinctively but then she turns and the sight of Jim’s face calms her. She hopes she hasn’t woken him.

No such luck. “Naomi?” He starts.

 “Sorry, did I wake you?”

 The corner of his mouth turns up into a wry smile.”Kind of. Bad dream?”

 Naomi nods.

 “Want to talk about it? It helps me when I tell you about mine.”

 Naomi sighs; even after all this time her good ol trusty _broken_ brain going on alarm mode, sirens blaring. “That doesn’t mean I have to tell you mine,”she says, not bothering to hide the sharp edge in her voice.

 Jim doesn’t argue back. His eyes soften instead. “I know. I’m sorry. You don’t have to but if you want, the offers open...I owe you that much after all the times you’ve listened to me.”

Naomi nods, takes a deep breath, closes her eyes. Reminds herself that not everyone is waiting for any sign of weakness from her so they can pounce, use it to their advantage. That _Holden_ isn’t out for her blood.

 “There was a child crying in my dream. I looked and looked and _looked_ but I couldn’t. Couldn’t find him.” Her voice breaks on the last word and Jim’s hands are on her face, caressing her cheeks. It’s the first time she’s brought up Filip ever since she’d first told Jim about him when they were heading to Io. Remembers telling him,  _you don't really know me but it's not your fault_. How grateful she'd been that he hadn't gotten angry at her for not telling him about Filip.  How it'd made her love him more. 

 “It was him, wasn’t it?” Naomi notes that Jim doesn’t say Filip’s  name. Wonders what it’d be like to hear it coming from Jim’s mouth. Imagines Jim raising him like his own child. She knows this deep in her bones - _Jim would have loved him._ He would have been a great father. And suddenly, she _aches_ to see it, Jim holding Filip in his arms, looking at him like he’s his world, his child, _their_ child. Filip calling him, ‘Dad’ and Jim proudly saying, ‘that’s my boy.’

 Naomi nods. Jim doesn’t push. He waits patiently for her to continue. “His birthday’s coming up. It gets harder around then. Missing him.”

 She rolls over, away from Jim. She suddenly can’t bear to see the look on his face. Can’t deal with his sympathy. Right now, she wants to be the Naomi he knew before, unburdened by a traumatic past and a lost child.  It’s like she’s floating adrift in the deep cavernous black of space, nothing for miles, not even asteroids. It’s always like this when it’s that time of year again.

 Even though it’s been ages, the wound feels too fresh, still too raw and tender for her to tell him about it. She’ll let him tell her his story instead. Let his words fill her up. _“_ Tell me another one of your Earther stories, when you were a boy,” she says. It’s become one of their rituals now for her to ask him this, when she’s feeling unsettled. She knows it pains him to talk about a lot of his childhood but he likes reminiscing about his memories of himself and Mother Elise.

 There’s a long silence and she thinks he’s going to say _something_ about her changing the subject but then  he asks. “Did I ever tell you about the time when I decided I just _had_ to save the chickens’ eggs?”

 She turns back over to face him and oh, his eyes are soft and warm. “No, haven’t heard _that_ one. Sounds like a funny little story.”

 Jim draws in a deep breath, his arm tightening around her. “I was convinced I was a knight like Don Quixote. It was my favourite book when I was a child. I used to beg Mother Elise to read it to me as a bedtime story and I would go to sleep, dreaming about saving the world.”

 “Oh, I bet your mom _loved_ that,” she says, trying not to think of a time when she too had used to read bedtime stories to her boy.

 “Mmm,” he assents. “So one day, I thought about how sad it was that the eggs couldn’t  grow into chickens because we selfish humans were eating them.”

 “You never told me you were a hero before,” Naomi laughs, running her fingers on the underside of his jaw. “James Holden, saviour of baby chicks.” He smiles down at her, his hand rubbing circles into her side. She’s never held a real egg before in the palm of her hand, let alone, eaten one but she’s seen pictures of them before. Can’t imagine turning up her nose at that luxury. No Belter would ever think that it’s selfish to eat animals.  Growing up, the furthest she’d come to a live chicken or egg was meat grown in tanks.

 “Of course what happened was that I ended up breaking all of them when I was carrying them to safety. The Fathers were so angry at me. I wasn’t allowed near the chickens anymore after that.”

 “Poor baby,”she teases, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

 “Mother Elise wasn’t angry though. She said, ‘it’s time Jimmy got a pet of his very own, to keep him company.’ He’s just acting out because he’s lonely. So she…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for your comments on the first part! Any feedback is greatly appreciated!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I keep increasing the chapter count! The next one will definitely be the last! Quote is from '34 excuses for why we failed at love'.

4\. _Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same._

Naomi doesn’t know when she drifts off to sleep but when she wakes it’s morning and time to run some errands to get parts for the _Roci._ She stumbles through her daily tasks like a sleepwalker. By the end of the day, she feels like an open wound, rubbed raw.

When she gets back to the _Roci_ , she can’t wait to pull Jim into their room and get off his clothes.   Suddenly, she can’t bear to not be touching him, wants nothing between them not even their clothes. She rides him slow in their bed, her fingers caressing his face, her tongue trying to find solace inside his mouth. Grief has been spiralling through her all day, her body hollowed out by it. Right now, it’s Jim’s cock inside her, his hands running up her bare back, the contact of skin on skin, desire running whitehot through her veins that are making her feel grounded, that eases that emptiness within her.

“I’ve been wanting this,” she murmurs, “wanting you, inside me, all day.”

This draws a moan out of him and he looks up at her, eyes hooded with desire, his hands moving to her breasts and circling her nipples, doing something with his fingers that feels like magic. “Yeah?” he sighs.

“Ever since breakfast. You looked delicious with your reading glasses on.”

“Oh, did I?” he grins, eyes twinkling. Then he does a little waggle of his eyebrows at her and it’s so ridiculous that an  unsexy snort escapes her nose. But she doesn’t care. For a moment, she’s okay. For a moment nothing hurts.

“You look tired,” he says when she’s snuggled up to him after he makes her come with his tongue on her clit. She loves when he’s like this soft and fuzzy, post-orgasmic. “Is your dream still bothering you?”

Naomi sighs, wishes now that this could be something they can talk about like it isn’t a secret; like he isn't stepping on eggshells around her. But she doesn’t know how to, doesn’t think she can ever articulate it; how her world changed after Filip was ripped away, how there’s a hole in it now that matches the one inside of her, how everything is shaped by loss and lack, the negative space of it all.

It’s not a clean cut. Its a wound, jagged and messy, not just the result of one traumatic incident. It’s caught up inextricably with the pain and ugliness that her ex-lover had inflicted upon her.

She can’t talk about Filip without first talking about _him._ Because Filip isn’t truly gone, but he’s out there, _somewhere_ and Naomi doesn’t even know if her own son resents her, if he thinks she abandoned him. If he’s safe and okay (how can he be if he’s with her ex?) How, some part of her still can’t process that the man she loved had done it to her. “Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.”

“Naomi,” he says, brows furrowed. “I’ve never lost a child and I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But this weight you’re carrying, it’s too much for you alone. Let me help you carry it. Or it doesn’t even have to be me -you need to talk about it with someone.”

“Jim,” she sighs. “I can’t.”

“I know, I know, it’s not as easy as that. I just worry about you,” he murmurs, looking at her with those _eyes_ . And she can feel it deep in her bones, that he really _does_ mean it.

“I’ll think about it, yeah?” she relents.

“Good,” he says, his mouth quirking up into a smile, edged with tenderness. She wants to dive deep in it, bathe in it. Luxuriate in it. “No rush. Take your time but you don’t have to do it alone. Remember...together till the end.”

“Mmm.”

“I asked Drummer and she said there are groups here for people like you to talk about these things with each other and it helps them. I signed you up to one of them.”

“Wait, what?” she asks, pushing herself up on her elbow.  Indignation bubbles up inside her. “You talked to _Drummer?_ And ‘people like me’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hey, whoa,” he says, puzzled. “I was just trying to help. And she cares about you. We both do. And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant grieving parents who’ve lost their children, survivors of domestic violence.”

“Who gave you the _right_ to do that  for me? To me?” Her head is buzzing now; her entire body on edge telling her to run because it’s been through this before and it _can’t_ get hurt like that again. She knows exactly what it’s like to let a man into her bed, into her heart and then have him take over her. She won’t let that happen again. Throwing off the blankets, she gets up and hurriedly tugs her clothes on.

“Naomi, wait, listen to me - “ Jim pleads and she can feel him watching her even though her back is turned to him.

“ _Don’t_ ,” she says. How strange it is that just half an hour ago, she couldn’t wait to strip herself naked before this man and now she’s dying to cover herself up, armor herself so he can’t _see_ her anymore.

 

*

Naomi feels a little guilty when she places a call to Drummer, for taking up her time with _this_ . Then again, maybe she shouldn’t, considering her friend had been talking to Holden about her, in _secret_ when it’s none of their business.

Drummer’s familiar face fills her hand terminal and Naomi feels some part of her come alive like it only does around Drummer. She can’t stay mad at her for long. Drummer lifts her fist in greeting.

“Are you busy? I don’t want to distract you from important business.”

Drummer is, as always, direct and to the point. “I always have time for you.”

Naomi swallows. “So I hear from Holden, you two have been talking about me.”

Drummer sighs and rolls her eyes, “Oh. Holden.”

“When did you two become such good friends?”

Drummer scoffs. “Friends? He cares about you, _sasa ke_? And I do too. That’s all we have to talk about  with each other. You.”

“Right. He told me that you said there are people I can talk to.  People who’ve been going through the same thing as me.”

Drummer narrows her eyes at her. “Yes. _Mi pensa_ he’s worried. About you. I guessed it was because of what you told me after you left the _Behemoth_ . Why you thought I won’t let you go. Because of that _dzhemang,_ that _pashangwala_  and what he did to your child.”

“I don’t like you two talking about me behind my back. You should have brought it up with me first. It’s _mine_.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. ”

Naomi feels the last vestiges of her anger at her melt away. “Did you know he’s already signed me up to one without even telling me?”

Drummer does the Belter shrug. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“I’ve only told you and him a little. I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You will be ready. When the time come. I know it. I send you the information later.”

“How do you know? That I’ll be ready?”

“Because you’re Naomi Nagata.”

“ _Taki, sesata,_ ” she says, touching her fingers to her chest in the Belter gesture for thank you. She doesn’t have the words to express the depth of what she feels now for Drummer, how much Drummer has her heart.

But it seems like Drummer gets it without her having to say it. She places her hand over her own heart in return. “ _Im ta nating, sesata.”_  Drummer’s strength, her belief in her is something that she bottles up to carry with her through the days ahead.

 

*

Naomi’s eating in the galley when Jim comes in because he can’t go one hour without some of his _goddamn_ coffee. It’s irritating but she’s also half endeared by it  - well okay, when she isn’t mad at him.

She can feel his eyes on her hesitant as he stands by the coffee machine. Notices how haggard his face looks, the dark shadows under his eyes. Wonders if Miller appeared to him again, if he’s had another sleepless night because of it. If his cancer meds aren't working properly. God, she still worries about him,  even when she resents him. She can’t take it anymore so she turns her head to look at him. “If you have something to say to me, just say it.”

“Look, I don’t like arguing with you,” he says and goddamnit because he has his puppy dog eyes on, begging her to forgive him. “Naomi, I’m sorry.”

God, he’s so _dumb_ sometimes but also so fucking earnest that she can’t help but love him. “I don’t like you talking to Drummer behind my back like I’m some invalid who needs to be treated carefully and watched over. Like I’m _fragile_ . And since when did you and Drummer get so chummy? And I especially _don’t_ need you to do things for me without asking me first! You think you’re helping but you’re not.”

He looks guilty now. “Okay.”

“I’ll think about it but no promises. This is _mine_ , Jim. My pain. Not yours. And I decide how I want to recover. In my own time. I don’t need you taking over for me.”

“I’m sorry. No more pressuring, I promise and no more stepping in without talking to you first.  I just- I love you.”

She knows that. Walks over to him and leans her forehead on his, listens to the exhale of his breath; steady and true. Feels like there’s a weight that’s been lifted off her chest.

“I’m not him,” he murmurs. “I promise I  will do everything I can to not be him.”

“I know that,” she whispers back. “It’s just sometimes, I get scared, that you’re going to control me, like he did. I was young, _stupid_ , naive; I didn’t think he would do that to me.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says fiercely.

“It took me a long time to realize it wasn’t,” she whispers back. “Sometimes, I still feel like I don’t deserve to mourn because I should have been better.”

“ _Yes_ you do. You already are enough.” He wraps his arms around her, burying his face into her neck like he wants to press comfort into her. She lets him, lets herself sink into his embrace.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading. As always, any comments are appreciated! I'm unsure about this chapter esp my handling of Naomi's abuse. I'm sorry for any mistakes made or if I fucked up (also with the Belter creole).


	4. Chapter 4

  1. _I’m writing to you from the future to tell you that everything’s going to be okay._



On Filip’s birthday, Naomi goes to the market to buy a candle for her boy. She’s baking a cake in the _Roci_ ’s galley, with some instructions from Alex and ingredients sourced from god knows where by Amos when Holden comes up to her, a package in his hand. Bobbie had said she’d help be her taste-tester once the cake's done but it's not ready yet. The rest of the _Roci_ crew have left her alone, somehow sensing that she needs some space to herself.

“What’s this?” She asks.

Jim presses a kiss to her cheek, hands it to her. “Open it,” he says. She does and tears spring to her eyes when she sees the flower inside. It's beautiful, bursting with color, like pictures she's seen in books.

“How did you?” She asks, hand on her mouth; because if she doesn’t hold something over it she just knows everything in her will come spilling out, guts and all.

Jim smiles. “Asked around. Okay, Prax helped me.”

“Figured,” she says but she can’t help smiling at him. “Thank him for me, will you?”

"I will," he murmurs, "but he said he was happy to help because he understands what you're going through." Naomi remembers with a pang, walking through the tunnels of Ganymede, looking for another missing child. _"Look you haven't lost a child."_ Thank God, they'd found his. She'd thought at that time, it was some way of giving back, of making up for not being able to find hers.

Jim wraps his arms around her and holds her tight while they both watch the candle flickering. “Just let go,” he murmurs into her ear. “Just let yourself hurt. I’ll be here. Remember? Together till the end.”

Her heart squeezes in her chest. Breathes in, out.

“Want some alone time?”

“No,” she sighs. “It’s okay. I just- I had a little speech planned. But now, it doesn’t seem good enough.”

“Whatever you have to say will be enough.”

“Hmm.”

There’s a chime on her hand terminal and she opens it up to see a message from Drummer.

It takes her a while for the words to work its way out of her throat. Her chest feels so tight. “Filip.” She can feel Jim’s steadying presence besides her, an encouraging hand on her hip. “ _Tenye wa diye beref xush_ . You must be so big by now. I made you a cake. Remember when you were two and I found some fake eggs and fake flour? I tried to make you a cake then but it turned out a disaster. But it didn’t matter, because...because you were two and alive and _mine_.” Her voice cracks on that last word. She doesn’t know if she can go on.

Then there’s Jim’s reassuring voice in her ear.“Want me to take over?”

She nods. She doesn’t trust herself to speak right now without breaking into sobs.

“Hi Filip, I'm James. James Holden. You don't know who I am but I know your mom and I hope you know this. That you are loved. Remembered. Mourned.”

The dam breaks then and she gives in to it, lets herself hurt like her whole being is on fire; lit up, aglow. Grief is no longer the thing hollowing her out. She will name it, own it, make this grief _hers._  Because she knows, she can pick the pieces up again,  rebuild herself anew. And there are people - Jim, her boys, her _Roci_ family, Drummer - to help keep her going.

*

Naomi’s floating on a dream.

In it, she’s somehow managed to find Filip, save him from his father. A year later, Filip sometimes still has nightmares; wakes up screaming from them. She comes back to the _Roci_  one night after a meeting that’s gone far too long to source some hard to find parts for their ship. The distinct sound of Jim’s gravelly murmur floats through the hallway as she makes her way over to Filip’s room. The door’s open a crack and she peers through where she can see the faint outline of her son in bed; Holden sitting besides him.

It’s Don Quixote again. “To help you keep the nightmares away. You’re a knight, just like Don Quixote. The _Roci_ will protect you,” Jim tells him.

Filip looks up at him with wide eyes. “What about Mom?” he asks.

Jim cracks a smile. “Your mother is the bravest knight of them all.”

Warmth stirs inside her as she watches Filip snuggle up to Jim’s side; Jim looking down at him with such affection in his eyes. “Jim,” she watches her son beg now. He’s smart enough to know Jim’s weaknesses, which buttons to press to get him to  do what he wants. “Can I have a snack? I’ll go right to sleep after this, I promise. Just tell me about the horse you rode on Earth.”

“I’m still waiting for him to call me Dad, but I’m okay if he doesn’t,” Jim confesses to her after, when Filip's fallen asleep. “I don’t, I don’t really know if I’m cut out for being a father.”

“He looks up to you, you know,” Naomi says. “He _loves_ you. He’s finally starting to trust you. You’re good for him.”

When she wakes up, that old familiar ache is still there, but it feels different now, less of a throbbing but more of a quiet hum like an engine, carrying her through the vast expanse of space.

  1. _The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name, and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world._



It doesn’t get better all at once. There are hard days when all she wants to do is curl up into a ball and scream. But there are also the good days and still in the midst of everything moments of joy. _Just hold on_ , becomes a mantra she repeats daily to herself. She tries to hold on to moments that are precious, to _live_ presently inside of them. Of course with her, she cant stop wishing to make the moment last as long as possible, to stretch it eternal.

She wrestles Jim into bed and tugs off his shirt, drinking in the sight of his bare chest, his sexy abs and she thinks with a clench, with fondness, _mine._

She hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud until Jim looks up at her with a bemused smile on his face. “Of course. I’m yours,” he says with a chuckle.

“Does that mean that you’re taking my last name?” she teases. "James Nagata. It does have a nice ring to it."

“You know I’ll do anything you want,” he says. And god he’s gorgeous like this, his mouth tilting up into a smile all for her and she leans over to kiss it off him and she’s so glad to be here, alive, in this moment, his skin beneath her hands; with this man who all he wants to do right now is to please her.

“Oh, anything?” she asks, archly.

“Oh, you’re going to make me regret this, aren’t you?”

They laugh into their kisses and she feels lit up inside, buoyant with happiness. She puts her hand on his throat just as she’d done when she’d seen him after so long, alive, in the brig of the Behemoth; his pulse fluttering like hummingbird wings beneath her fingers. She holds it there to remind herself, he’s _here_ , that some things can be found, not everything is lost. It’s affirmation and anchorage, all at once.

“Hey,” he says, “where’s your head at?”

She shakes off those thoughts. “Here. With you.”

He breaks into a grin so wide, like he can't help himself. God, she loves that she knows what he likes, what makes him happy; this intimacy that comes with _knowing_ someone, letting them see you. Jim always lets her see him. That’s part of the reason why she can be with him.  

“Mmmhmm,” she sighs, leaning in for another kiss; pleasure sweeping through her in waves. Tenderness blooms within her as she takes her pleasure hungrily from Jim who is all too ready to give it. She could float here just like this, she thinks, mapping the crevices of Jim’s skin with her mouth. Suspended here in this present moment,  which feels _lived_ -in, warm and full. Buoyed by their love. She wants to keep this feeling inside her for always.

*

There’s a sign that says “Group Meeting” just where Drummer had said it would be. She pushes open the door, takes a deep breath. Remembers. She’s Naomi Nagata and she is loved and she’s here and here and here.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All quotes again belong to Warsan Shire. As always, I appreciate all kudos, comments and bookmarks! If you can, I'd love to know what you think. If not, thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Tenye wa diye beref xush = Happy birthday

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to, you can also message me here on [tumblr ](https://safestorms.tumblr.com/)


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